


Trust Fall

by unkahii



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (rollercoaster of) emotions, (sort of a) war au, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Co-workers to lovers, F/M, Fluff, Gaslighting, Happy Ending, Healing, Slow Burn, but kags here is!, getting over fears, initial trust issues, learning to become teammates, mcs oblivious of their feelings, mentions of past relationships - Freeform, reader is a flawed character, reader is not good at working in teams, the idea of "falling", they are in LOVE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkahii/pseuds/unkahii
Summary: Hold on. Trust that it will work out.Trust fall.Despite your best efforts not to, you end up falling for him.[Ocean Eyes by Billie Ellish]
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Reader
Kudos: 7





	Trust Fall

**Author's Note:**

> hbd to the loml. thank you to dawn (@miyafeuille on tumblr) for beta-reading!

_No fair_

_You really know how to make me cry_

_When you give me those ocean eyes_

_I’m scared_

In the chief warrant officer’s tiny, dingy office that seems more like shadow than light to you, you hear the name for the first time. Just like all first times, initially it doesn’t ring a bell in your head. You haven’t heard of any Tobio Kageyama before, you let him know. 

“Oh, he’s an amazing guy,” he mutters dismissively through the stacks of papers that his fingers are sifting through busily. “Very talented, very hardworking, a great asset to the state. Combine your skill sets with his, you’ll be an unbeatable team.”

The word _team_ doesn’t sit with you well. “Is that,” you ask sceptically, “why I was suddenly assigned with an unfamiliar guy? Because uh, our skill sets will do well together?”

“That’s a large part of the whole reason in all honesty. See L/n,” he looks up from his desk, meets your gaze through beady, observant eyes, “you’re a great officer. With lots of talent, potential too. We don’t want that to go to waste. I’m sure you want to do something with those specialities of yours too. But _circumstantially_ , to be assigned to a project you need a team. And a two man team, with this young lad is the best option there is, I think. Cheers! It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“I get it, sir.”

Damp silence, that perhaps co-habits that room with the cold shadowy air, settles down in the space again as your conversation reaches its end. It reminds you of the fact that the place is basically underground, the dungeons starting only two more levels down. Highly reluctant to stay stuck in a location that reminds you of the state of being _trapped_ , you bid the senior officer a good day and totter out of the room, out of the corridor, up, up through the stairs and finally into the open air outside. You’re out under the sky now, but your mind feels trapped yet again – this time in the worry, _what will happen_ , what should you do that now you’ve been assigned to another stupid two man team after working solo in the research lab for four long years. 

* * *

Seven days later, standing at a corner of the hall room in the Central Building, you meet him for the first time. The officer introduces the tall, dark haired (and startingly blue-eyed) man as Kageyama Tobio to you. You bow to each other in courtesy, as is the protocol, and then move back along the way you came, back to your own businesses till the orders summon you to interact and cook up plans and strategies and undertake research for this reason and that. You part ways when the project, job, mission, whatever one chooses to call those formal “working-together-for-division-of-labour” days and hours get over. Your small apartment, sitting at a corner of the Central Building welcomes you home. Few days later, another order comes, and the process repeats itself. 

Much to your relief it doesn’t come as a pain. (A stable sense of existence and purpose is what you prefer more than storms blowing into your life and attempting to turn everything topsy-turvy. Running around the house, clawing for papers when the clouds swell into darkness and the winds howl like monsters, is something very very irritating.) He, that is Kageyama Tobio, or officer Kageyama, like how you have chosen to call him, is fortunately not the talkative and probing type. You prefer it that way. Although you have to admit that social cues and the finesse of navigating through the complex webs of various relationships every day is not something he is the best at. But like your senior informed, he’s hardworking, definitely so. 

_However_ , he does tend to complain about the division of work between you and him. You look up from the diagrams of things that are akin to neuronal networks and watch the frown on his face with sleep laced eyes. 

“Why?” you lean back in your seat and question. 

“You do too much by yourself.”

“This,” waving your hand at the screens and papers lying scattered on the table, you say, “is _my_ department. Can you look after any of these?” 

“Not really…”

“So?”

One, two. Three seconds pass, and he, appearing to be doing some calculations of his own in his head, keeps his mouth shut. You wait for him to reply and when nothing comes and your gaze drifts back towards the table, he speaks up—

“I guess you’re right. At the end, what’s best for the team is what matters.”

Unlike what you’re used to, now _your f_ ace reacts even before you have the time to flatten out the emotion. It’s the turn of your brows to weave themselves into a line and you look back towards him, curiosity and scepticism on your face. He wears his expression as deadpan as always and despite the fact that you perfectly understand what he meant, you juggle the words a few times in your head, as if more inspection is required before stowing them away in the heap of blurry memories. And next, the line comes out of your mouth even before you have had the time to wonder _to say or not say._ But later you realise that it’s perhaps a good thing. 

“I think we should talk to the higher ups about it then. That is write to them ”

The panic is expected, so for a brief moment you watch it flicker into existence on his visage before going on with your idea. “I mean,” you continue, “it’s honestly been a long time since I went out of station on a job too. I’d love to do an outstation project and it will be great for you as well.”

The glee is there, it is easily noticed – palpable among the lines on Kageyama’s face. Seeing it on your so-far stoic colleague feels too weird if truth were to be said, especially with the unnaturally taut expression he tries to maintain instead of grinning. The offer does bring in some pain in your ass, but it’s true however – it’s been long, a bit too long, since you were assigned to a post out of this tiny little town tucked in the hills. No wonder, with the amount of talent as Kageyama’s anyone would feel suffocated to be here. But the assignment comes not from some local officials but from the district headquarter itself. _But me and him have been doing good work, it shouldn’t be a problem._ Besides, there are so few pattern analysts and for a fact that you’re aware of, they’re required near the front lines. 

“I’ll talk. Ok, scratch that, you and I go and meet the district head this weekend. And then, fill in the form, mail it to the headquarter. I think we can bag one outstation project at least.”

* * *

  
  


Time dawdles on, life dawdles on. The imprint of the letter neatly typed in the open sans font has been removed from the front of your mind, and stopped haunting your retinas at unexpected hours of the day now. About a little more than two weeks ago, you visited the local head, the colonel posted in this town, and presented the letter with the filled in form, requesting that you and Kageyama Tobio be allowed to undertake at least one outstation mission. There’s a protocol for going about making that request, and one thing you know for sure is that you didn’t mess it up, and neither were yours, or his, credentials not suitable for a team that’s granted the assignment. But whatever reason it was, your request was turned down at the end, the rejection arriving three days later in the form of a neat mail in your inbox. 

The light from inside the mess pours into the darkness of the night outside, extending in warm columns over the snow, infecting the lightlessness. Nonetheless, the yellow eventually fades away into the shadows. The winters have only gotten colder as the years have passed by. The outdoors seems to be waiting like some sleeping beast in these cold nights. Nonetheless, _it’s a pretty place_ , you think to yourself, while watching the woman on the counter ladle out carrot soup into the bowl sitting on your plate. You make your way back to your regular seat and have just dug in when the interruption in the form of your colleague arrives at your table. 

You look up from your seat, a brow raised. “Is there something?” you ask professionally. “Did any issue come up?”

“No.”

“Then?” 

“Can I sit here?”

(This is the first time, when something maybe happens to you. In the future, when you’ll look back, in retrospect, it will all lead back to this point. A simple action, nothing more. After it, the scenes blur, as you accelerate, and life suddenly changes colours and dynamically transforms to something you will never be able to recognise. )

Something quivers inside you, the air inside the building is warm at the least and merry at the best, but still, you feel like you’re about to freeze up. It’s more of a disbelief. Scepticism, unwillingness to believe. The same kind of things that make you averse to working in teams. When you don’t respond, Kageyama continues,

“I thought we could eat together. You never have dinner at the mess anyways.” 

That’s because most of the time you do so back in your apartment that stands just round the corner to the dormitories. It’s standard protocol as far as you remember – to eat together with your team during lunch or dinner, who are supposed to be next to your family at this place. The reason is to promote trust and understanding and facilitate the ease of interaction during critical moments. But thanks to your absence during such and such hours, an opportunity never manifested itself before this. 

You look around; however, most don’t follow whatever the papers dictate anyways. 

“You don’t have to force yourself to, y’know. There’s no one supervising us here. Won’t fetch you a penalty if you don’t follow the protocol,” you say lightly. 

“I’m not forcing myself.”

Eye contact. You meet his eyes, you find oceans in them, the lights dancing like how they do on water’s surface, the blue of the skies above reflected to create a shade even prettier. His eyes are not even water really. There’s also fire. It’s the type of the thing that melts over your skin as steam does over water. Pulling you in. But since too much familiarity, the heart beating too fast is bad for your health, you pull away. 

“Alright then,” you mumble. “Have a seat.”

Silence lays in the two feet wide table space between the two of you. The first ever interaction outside official hours, it does get a tiny bit awkward. But you invite him to dig in anyways, and so it starts. A little chit chat here and there, mostly on your part to keep away the awkwardness (and whatever that lives inside you and asks you to leave everything and run away. _What’s the point of this_ , it says, t _o try to grow closer than is necessary? To spend times that could have easily been sent apart? No point really_.)

* * *

However, when two more weeks later, you find yourself unable to have dinner alone in your room like you have for the most part of your life – the heater’s warmth a bit too much and the hum of the mess missing, you get up and, through the snow that still carpets the small route back to the dormitories from your home, trace your way. Some of the others tell it’s the obvious lack of human contact, that you are finally becoming aware of, causing these effects. You are talking a little more than you did with Kageyama, and your heart freezing up a little more every time you see that he’s kept a seat aside for you on the bus back to the town from some camp a few kilometers away. It puts you at unease, how easy it is becoming to talk to him. 

It’s the fault of the dinners basically, you deduce. 

The projects however are not improving, and at this point you too feel very noticeably starved of outstation ones. He’s better at doing the outdoor stuff too, and your expertise at recognizing patterns and laying down strategies ends up augmenting whatever talent he has. You will do amazing, one evening you proclaim, as he has just put a spoonful of rice into his mouth, and with cheeks stuffed full, Kageyama nods vehemently. “That’s my point,” he says. “Do you think they need us to try even harder?”

“Is it?” you say. “then should I apply for an S-grade one the next time the forms come in?” 

“Do that. We can make it of course.”

“Of course, we can.”

You’ve had a few of your friends whisper to you in tipsy voices about the jealousy they feel when they see your professional compatibility with your colleague. Laughing it away, you never forget to let them know that Kageyama really is more like a child. A little stupid, lacking social finesse, unable to translate thoughts to words without the use if too many interjections in between the real substance. It will be a lie nonetheless to say that you hate working with him. You don’t.

But sometimes, it just tends to get out of your hand. At those moments, the thoughts in your head blur to a state too worse and you’re left hanging with a bunch of too many questions, a hollow screaming inside your mind. You don’t know the answers to the _why_ ’s and Kageyama seems to know all of them, and even if he attempts to explain them to you, you _don’t_ get it. No matter how hard you try. 

“Why on earth? No, we are not, pulling that off, Kageyama. Just no.”

He stares (frustration in his eyes) at the map that you have imported into the application and the little dots and the squares and triangles scurry about the screen, their movements being a simulation of whatever you are planning to carry out. It’s the S-grade project you plan to undertake. And just a day prior to perhaps the biggest and toughest of projects you have carried out, you are actually at loggerheads with your colleague. 

Why? A simple question of taking the risk or not. 

He wants to take it ( _as is in his nature,_ you roll your eyes when you think) and you simply conclude that it’s a stupid option. 

“We don’t leave the base unguarded. We go together,” you assert, trying to keep your voice as plain as plain as possible. 

“I’ve told you this,” he lets you know through gritted teeth. “That _anyone_ , who’s not a little scaredy cat will choose to divide the duties. We’ve done it before too! Why not this time?”

“Yeah, fine call me a scaredy cat, because yes, I’m scared. What if it gets messed in the frontlines and the communications get cut off?”

“You simply send in more support; come in yourself!”

“And what if that fails? What if I can’t get back to you?!”

“You’ll be able to! Why’re you beating your head up about it?!” 

The ice in your veins returns. What makes you like _this_ is something you wouldn’t like to discuss. Conceding involves letting go of your fears and those fears live deep. When did trust start to taste so bland in your heart that you developed this strange dislike? There’s war between your fears and worries and a storm of overthinking (you’re a pattern analyst for a reason) _and_ his stance. 

The colour of the sun at sunset, like a sky on fire, slips between the gaps present in your fist, which is unable to capture light. When you see that light, you are tempted to loosen your grip - a grip on useless thoughts and things. Things have changed, the winters will perhaps get a little less cold, and the ball has been set rolling – you are perhaps about to let go of things you didn’t know you were holding on to as well. 

Kageyama frowns at you, and you frown back at him, and then at the screen, the dots, the scrambling around squares and triangles. “I don’t get you,” you huff. “Why are you like this?”

“And y’know I can ask the same back to you? It’s not that you can’t. You’re just scared.”

A beat. A second or two passes. Silence. 

“That’s right. I’m scared, very much so.”

* * *

And perhaps that’s the truest thing you’ve spoken out loud in a long time. Rather than murmuring away to yourself in your mind. 

* * *

“There was this guy I once worked with, very irritating in my opinion. But there was something about him,” Kageyama tells you as you plow your way to your apartment. The coldness in the air is melting away, the January chill transitioning towards the earliest days of spring. When you walk beside him nowadays, the warmth in your chest is so intoxicating and addicting that all other thoughts, other than the sound of his voice fades away. It’s almost like being held, despite the fact that quite some centimeters separate you from him. 

The thoughts and wishes that sprout into your mind when you are with him, do indicate towards a very particular kind of feeling set, a kind of premonition about where this is headed. You shouldn’t pay them heed. _Shouldn’t_. Nonetheless, it all looks so very inviting that you almost give in. _Almost_. The sensation of a blanket wrapping around you in rainy days, and of the sense of peace that pats your head, tells “there’s nothing to worry about”. Ha! When you’re with Kageyama, you’ve been getting that feeling a lot too; just being with him makes you let go of all the anxious thoughts; in your heart you accept that perhaps there really isn’t any reason to worry about–it’s all going to be ok. 

“And what’s that?” you ask. 

“He just trusted you so much, that you couldn’t help but lean on him as well. Even if uh…he was not the most skilled one.”

Thanks to the fact that you find yourself unable to frame a response to this (no, you just have such a hard time _believing_ all that) you maintain your silence and instead choose to turn your head sideways, meet his gaze with a look that as if questions him, questions _yourself_ if all that is true. Nose tinged red in the cold, eyes however as fiery, ocean-like as they’ve always been, he stares at you. (You feel yourself slipping and plummeting, the wind starting to whistle near your years. Are you already beyond the point of no return then?) And then you turn away. “What?” Kageyama is about to burst out loud, when you heed –

“Ah, a strange guy indeed.”

High time you admitted it really. You do want whatever relationship you share with him, to go beyond being just colleagues. 

(It’s just that you’re scared of whatever your emotions entail.)

And his eyes are so beautiful. 

(Your foolishness, however, may get ahead of your fears)

“Say, Y/n,” (you can’t still pinpoint the time when you transitioned to a first name basis), “do you think we should apply for an outstation again?” 

It’s a different kind of intimacy if whatever your wishes say come to fruition. You hum first, then reply-

“I think we should.”

* * *

It’s probably strange that he even notices this little nuance. Not like it’s something that happens physically, something that the eye can distinguish. But Kageyama knows (and it oddly hurts him when he understands that it’s the way it is and he almost longs that it _wasn’t_ that way.) 

Sometimes he finds you staring lifelessly at the screen; sometimes, you just freeze up as if some kind of nightmare is replaying itself in your head. He knows you’re scared (of various things) but _who knows what’s it_ that tells him that these fears are not easy to unravel. That stories go with it and there are reasons more complicated than he would like to understand. 

But why the hell does he feel like he _wants_ to understand (and perhaps help soothe it) then?!

The door swings inwards and Kageyama walks in, before coming to a halt in front of the chief warrant officer’s desk, where papers (as usual lie about carelessly). 

“Kageyama,” he begins. “You know what this is about, I suppose?”

“No. Not really.”

Seemingly disappointed with his intuition, the man sighs and taps the desk a few times with his index, as if taking the time to frame his thoughts into sentences that will be appropriate. “So, let’s start at the start then,” he elaborates. “Do you have an idea why you were assigned to work with L/n?”

“Uhh.” What really is the big deal about it; people are assigned to special teams mostly because of the complementarity of their skill sets. “because our talents would do well together. That increases the efficiency, right? It’s what I think is the reason.”

“Well, that-” the chief warrant officer goes on, “is definitely there. That’s seventy percent of the reason I daresay. But there were other reasons too.”

All this unnecessary beating around the bush doesn’t suit his fancy, but years of training in discipline has at least drilled into his head the rule that says, _you’re not allowed to overstep your boundaries and interject while someone posted higher than you in the hierarchy speaks._

“And what would they be?” he asks, trying his best to keep his voice as polite as possible according to the socially accepted norm. The officer meets his eyes, dry, inspecting and almost sadly admonishing. The premonitory chill that runs down his spine tells him that he’s not about to hear something that would be super pleasant to his ears. What he hears however shouldn’t have been much of a bother to a past Kageyama (the officer perhaps expected that too) but to him, to _this_ him, it strikes at pretty nasty places. He’s worried, revolted and aghast at the same time.

“Look here, for certain things that happened back during the day, L/n obviously has _trust issues_. I think you can tell that. How sometimes things perhaps feel so one sided…it’s either her doing everything, or you doing much of the heavy lifting. And in the plainest of plain words, she is _not_ good at working in teams. For four long years she refused to work with anyone and whatever team she was assigned to, couldn’t produce the results they were expected to. It’s amazing how you’ve been able to stick together for months now, that’s not how we’re used to seeing it. Well, you were assigned with her for a reason as simple as that – you’ve been through a bit of this phase yourself. You possibly could bring her back into the groove. While a lot of it has improved, loopholes still remain. We still deem her too unstable for team work on an outstation project. Do you get why your requests are being declined?”

“I get it.”

“Good. Better work on it, eh?”

No, not good. It’s not good. His lungs feel crushed, for the speed of the fall has suddenly reached a value too much for him, and his wings seem to have caught on fire. And he’s already too deep in it now perhaps — this getting affected by the latest news is something neither he nor the higher ups expected. Yes, he would have been bothered under normal circumstances; mostly fury being the reaction along with frustration. And he’d preferably go on to tell off whoever was the reason for it (they’re simply bringing down the team’s performance!). 

However, this time he feels bone crushing sadness. Almost heartbreak. It’s not like what he is used to. 

“Also, there might be a job we have in store for both of you. It’s a special one. Drop by the roster office later.”

“Roger.”

(Kageyama can almost hear a voice murmur in his head: _wish it was not that way. Wish, she’d actually want to trust me_ )

He watches you freeze up. He watches you hold back under the effect of your own fears. What plagues your mind he doesn’t know; he doesn’t understand your reasons for doing whatever you do. But it’s high time that you have a talk. And so, he chooses to speak up (that it’s not fair. It’s not fair _at all_.)

“Oi, our request got turned down again.”

“Damn, I thought they would let us this time. Who knows why they are doing this?”

“Oh, I do know.”

Are you really unaware then? Unaware of your own actions that have been warped under fear and the looming weight of issues that you don’t know you suffer from? Or do you know, but are still unaware that all of it hasn’t gone missing by the rest? 

The expressions fall off from your face, and slow as the movement of a broken vehicle of communication, you turn sideways, questions hanging onto your gaze. Shivers. Kageyama doesn’t know why he feels that, but he can say that you almost feel like home sometimes. 

(Except that…the feeling is probably not returned from your side.) 

“What is it?” you inquire carefully. He takes in a deep inhale. 

“You.”

First your gaze drops, next your face falls and your shoulders visibly hunch under the effect of some queer emotion, and he’s suddenly beating himself up inside his head, because “ _no! I didn’t mean my words to have an effect like that.”_ Why is he so insensitive to feelings?

(What is it really like to be lugging around the shackles round ones’ ankles.)

“Oh”

And nothing else. The smallest of sounds of recognition. Of acceptance, defeat and what not. There’s all of it in your voice and accompanying them, a dark emotion that seems to weigh a thousand tons. You don’t continue speaking, which implies he has to go on. Something tells him, there’s really no need for him to spell it all out - you know (someone as smart as you must know) and you are actually aware of all it. But is it keeping you well? That’s a question for another time.

“You…have trouble working in teams. It’s great that you’ve been able to work together with me for so long, but there’re things lacking even in our teamwork. I’m going to be straight with this: if you have trouble truly trusting me as a teammate, and depending on me, then we’ll get nowhere we want to get.”

Pause.

“I know,” you answer. “I just can’t help it. It’s all so scary in a way…to let your life in someone else’s hands. What if they find it impossible to hang around, what if it gets too much for them and they don’t end up sticking? It’s foolish in a way, right?”

Silence. You are standing at the edge of the cliff located at the back of the central building; the dark rocky bottom stares up at your faces, cold and unmoving with a gaze so stern. Just looking over sends your nerves panicking - what would happen if you were asked to jump and told not to worry cause someone else is holding on to the rope that’s supposed to be your lifeline. They are human too…what if something happens. How can you not believe that everything doesn’t work out?

“It’s fine when I go out on projects and take jobs,” you explain further. “It’s mechanical in that case. I don’t think I’ve been causing you much trouble when it comes to on-the-spot things. Except some arguments of course. Everyone has that. I don’t know what the highers have seen. It’s more about…trusting someone with your vulnerability in person. Many struggle with it. I do too.”

You make it sound like none of it really matters and perhaps it doesn’t. To you at least…to be so well ingrained into your psyche at this point that you can’t recognize a version of yourself devoid of those pieces. Kageyama, however, doesn't get it. All he feels is… _what do they call it again?_ It’s like whatever lives inside his ribcage is being broken into a million tiny pieces, some turned to powder (that maybe is a little too dramatic sounding to the ears, too extravagant a picture to the eye. But he feels it. He feels all of it – disappointment, and sadness. _Heartbreak?_ Yes, that’s perhaps what they call it.) 

But he cannot deny, nor can he agree. Are you a troublesome partner? No, he has seen more difficult and reluctant team-players (for example himself). Then?

“If,” Kageyama speaks up, “it’s all one sided, then that’s something really so very disappointing to hear. I can’t depend on you and not expect you to do the same. Trust is a two-way road. And you cannot do it _mechanically_. I don’t even understand what you mean by that! If you can’t believe in me, I don’t think we should be assigned outstation jobs either.” 

(He sounds like a lover in anguish.)

And the lock-gates of the dam have grown rusty, they may fall apart at any time, and the paralysing tsunami flood your entire heart. It tries to this time too (you can hear the rumbling of the waves in the distance.) But you grit your teeth. Hold back. The reality of your own drawbacks has just slapped you across the face. These issues are yours to deal with and these yours-to-deal-with issues are endangering the health of the team. But there’s still an easier solution to all of it right? 

“You can resign from the team if you want,” you say to Kageyama. “If that’s what you think is the best for you.”

But it crushes your heart to say that (he does feel a lot like home). You don’t say it with spite, but only with indifference. The look he gives you, shows your own emotions reflected. And additionally, there’s that condescending smirk, that overconfident, _prideful_ smirk. Only this time it’s full of irony. It’s painful.

“I don’t think I will.”

Irritation. That’s what you feel. The lock-gates open, the waters gush in, but it’s not a tsunami, and it’s definitely not paralysing. The waves prod at your shackles and attempt to wash them away, 

He turns about, makes to take his leave and you are abruptly left standing at a weird spot. As you watch him retreat, an emotion you haven’t felt in sometime rears its head inside your heart: still so alive, still so strong. And the waters that gush in are warm. His eyes are like an ocean, but it’s almost as if the ocean is on fire. You feel warm, it’s like coming back home. There’s tingling in your fingers, one that asks you to reach out and catch hold. 

_But it’s scary right?_ To stare at the rock bottom of the cliff like you always have, is an option you are more accustomed to taking, and thus perhaps one more comfortable to you. You're tempted to say a _sorry_. 

_(“I don’t think I will”)_

“Tobio.” You turn around. He halts and looks back, annoyance all over the tight scowl on his face. He is pissed off, and you are the reason for so, but you walk up to him anyways. (It’s selfish probably)

The ice-cold waves try to flow back into your veins, but before they have filled your arteries, you reach out, albeit shakily and find his hand. Lacing your fingers into Kageyama Tobio’s. His scowl is now packaged with a reddening of his cheeks.

Silence. For quite some time. 

(He doesn’t pull away)

“Where do you want to go?” he asks you.

(It’s a free day.)

  
  


“How about downtown?”

* * *

**INTERLUDE  
  
  
**

* * *

  
  
Zero point zero 2 seconds. Whispers begin to bloom into the radio silence. Murmurs arise from the bottom of a pitch black pit and swell to the size of a confused buzz. The buzz is replaced by shouting. Screaming. Who is talking, who is crying, you don’t know. Your fingers grip the rigid handles of the chair as feverishly as they can, doing their absolute best to tie your trembling consciousness to some form of physical reality. The murmurs are screaming inside your head. The pictures that float into the spaces one by one are sepia coloured, yet so hauntingly alive that your grip may loosen and the world slip out from in between your fingers. Your breathing that’s been trained through years tells you to calm down, the oxygen does reach your neurons still. Hold on. Trust that it will work out. 

Trust fall.

* * *

_“He lied?”_

_“Uh apparently he needs some time to restore. There’s nothing to worry though, L/n. It’s just a couple of weeks of solitary training.”_

_“But we’re a team. Why did he lie? And what’s this about leaving without telling?”_

_“Huh, there’s no point in lying though, is it? Everybody in the squadron knows. He told ‘em.”_

_“I asked him if he was ok. Disappearing like that immediately after the grace period arrives. It was completely without a warning and I was worried sick. These are trying times!”_

_“He didn’t tell you?”_

_“No, he didn’t. And what do you mean by everyone knows? Why wasn’t I told?”_

_“Don’t make a big mess out of it now. You’re too much sometimes you know, Y/n.”_

_“Perhaps I am. I can’t help it if I love him right?”_

_“It’s getting comical at this point.”_

* * *

  
  


_“Don’t go away without telling like that. You know I get worried. We have a war going on.”_

_“You can’t trust me, then why bother being in the same team.”_

_“I do trust you. It’s just that I’d prefer a bit of intimation beforehand.”_

_“I don’t see the point in us being together anymore.”_

_“You’re not needed anymore, get lost.”_

The voices dim down, turn to whispers again, but your brain is still too full of cricket-sound fogs when the dull yellow light of the basement burns into your retinas and jerks you awake. The detailed information you captured is what you were clinging to till now. However when the people around start calling out your name in loud, worried tones, is when you realise that the voices in your head haven’t lowered in volume yet—they echo past the sounds of reality, of people calling your name out of most probably what is known as concern.

One among those real world ones nonetheless stands out. And pulls you into wakefulness.

“Y/n?”

Not L/n. It’s Y/n for him. 

And you see the blue. One like a sea built out of sapphires glistening in the moonlight. The hand finds yours, and the echoes that had overpowered other things present in the concrete existence of the room, is instead overpowered by a strange recognition of the person. 

“Ka-“ you begin, before hastily realising that ‘no that’s not the right lane y/n’ and you utter out his name, 

“Tobio.”

* * *

_You’re a little less scared these days, and that’s why you agree to the whole ordeal of this special job. The conflict has been picking up on the front lines and now there’s the need for more information. A few years ago, somebody had come up with this technique, and it has been used successfully countless times. Bringing suppressed memories to the forefront of the brain, so that they can be observed and analysed anew. This time, you decide to volunteer. The fact that you’re a pattern analyst, an expertise at noticing the smallest of things and picking up cues and signs that are otherwise missed in a blur of excitement, raises the chance of success even further._

_It was a long time coming, truth be said, and this the best possible time for the offer to come in honestly._

_“Oi, you’ll be alright. Don’t get scared now," Kageyama tells you._

_You have to laugh it off._

* * *

Your failures at grabbing an outstation job, keeps piling up and you and Tobio have got the entire process of collecting a form, filling it in, typing out the letter and placing it on the mahogany table of the district’s head-office’s reception, down to an art now. And as the number of times you fail continues going up endlessly, your desperation as if keeps increasing – obsessively you work hard (you work on the troubles that live at the back of your mind too) and sometimes you end up meeting at that familiar spot at the back of the central building, stand at the edge of the cliff and talk and listen to the winds howl and watch as scent of spring flowers blossoms into the air. 

The days pass by, but just keeping track of time has become a bore. _Something_ has happened to you. On Sundays, you flee from the confines of your home and workplaces and disappear into the crowd of the shopping district, the food plaza, or even the courts where children play volleyball. Not really doing anything—but you love to hold his hand, and that can be enough of a reason. The nights are still cold, so you close the distance between your bodies when you walk back home. Dinners sometimes happen at the mess and sometimes within the cozy silence of your tiny apartment. Quiet, without a lot of words being thrown about here and there. Sometimes you tell him things, things that perhaps would have come up into your mind when you went through that entire process of reliving memories that have been buried. And he too returns the favour, letting you know of things about him and his past. His teenage self that he calls stupid; you learn that he used to play volleyball. And you laugh. You tell him that you’ve been in love before and it didn’t go well and so you’re scared to lay your heart bare again (scared to be in love, to let go of things that inhibit you from completely trusting others) 

(You used to be mere co-workers. Now, who knows what you’re called.)

One free afternoon, a little before dinner, you discover yourself standing there at the edge of the cliff with him again. The week has gone in a flurry. Assigned to inspect some kind of work that is happening at a lab in the district headquarters, you have been away for some time. _These_ silences are enjoyable, like marshmallows and hot chocolate in winter, and when summers beat down, the sway of cold waters over parched skin. You’re sure he feels that too. And you’re about to make a random comment about developments on the front lines, when he says it. 

Your heart skips a beat. There is no sign of boyish embarrassment in his voice. 

“I love you, Y/n.”

Flares, how many you don’t count, are immediately lit up inside your being. _Ice cold flood do you want to come back?_ It does try to, but something _else_ …something else that tastes like gratefulness and a great deal like _love,_ simply shoos it away. Eye contact. Your gazes meet. His eyes are blue like sapphires but with fiery sparkles dancing inside gemstone prisms. Like oceans you’d like to drown in. You _want_ to drown in them, even if it requires falling from far above and letting go of fears. 

The kind of challenge that excites you. The kind of excitement that draws your lips closer to his mouth and causes you to push them upon his. It’s new. It’s warm. It leaves you incredibly full, but a little while later you are hungry for more. Your mouth carves into Kageyama’s, lips soft and your hearts unknowingly starved of all this. His arms find refuge around your waist, and tugging on his jet-black hairs, you slant your mouth deeper into his. 

* * *

Life moves little in a staccato afterwards, now that you know you’ve _fallen,_ and you’ve fallen in _love_ with Kageyama Tobio. Sometimes you freeze up, because the seeds of the apprehensions sowed in the past return back as disturbances on your path. But you have to remind yourself that trust is a two-way street. And that it could have been more difficult. It isn’t because it’s Kageyama. You love the way you’re falling: the winds don’t screech in your ears, it’s an intoxicated song, but it’s a song nonetheless and as the speed of the fall spikes up, it doesn’t crush your lungs. He says he really has no clue about how all of it works, but still manages to circle his arms around your frame on a soundless night, press his lips to your jawline and complain about _why you are like that._

Sincerity is palpable in everything he does or says. Yes, except the instance where he has to tell a lie specially to hide his own embarrassed feelings from you. You turn around and place your head in the crook of his neck. “I could ask the same to you,” you say back. And you know he’s smiling into your skin, hold tightening around each other. 

A few days later your team is asked to permanently transfer to the national headquarters for participating in the frontline efforts. These days you are less scared; the beats in the staccato-ish song settling down to smooth transitions. Soon you’re all packed and ready to leave. 

* * *

**CONCLUSION**

* * *

  
  


The faint music seems to be coming from one of the houses nearby. The rooftop venue is large, albeit empty as of now. When the woman responsible for showing you around suddenly excuses herself to attend to an emergency call, you sneak closer to the edge. You’re back at Sendai, and over the years it has blossomed into a megalopolis like Tokyo too. The city lights look akin to a sea of alive and breathing fireflies. 

“Oi.”

Amused with the lack of change in the way he starts his addressal, you end up grinning. And then look back to find him slouching over, hands in pockets. 

“Do you like this venue?” Kageyama asks you seriously. “There aren’t too many choices these days.”

“Hmm,” you reply in a sing-song voice, “I like it. Yes. It’s very beautiful.”

It’s too early to get sappy, the wedding is not in another three weeks or so. But when he walks up to your side and takes your hand, you are suddenly moved, overcome with unannounced emotion. The question that rises to your lips is way too rhetorical to be practical, so you think you’ll bite back and idle away the time by gushing about the pretty cityscape instead. 

However, it ultimately slips out. 

“Tobio what does it feel like to fall?” 

When he replies, you are strangely not surprised. It isn’t sarcasm. It’s simple honesty.

“Like the best thing ever.”

_I’ve never fallen from quite so high,_

_Fallen into your ocean eyes_

[Trust fall.]


End file.
